


Red Headed Lover on the Run (No One Knows)

by Pastel_Teacups



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: (sort of), Fix-It, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-25
Packaged: 2018-05-22 17:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6088296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pastel_Teacups/pseuds/Pastel_Teacups
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Anakin looks no different from the last time they met. He is swaddled in a dark cloak and moves toward Obi-Wan with his lightsaber ignited. The new model is not unlike his old one, but its flame is bold and red. </i> </p><p>----</p><p>Or, an AU in which nobody wins the Battle on Mustafar, and Obi-Wan finds himself lost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song "Bloom" by Sye Elaine Spence.

Obi-Wan stands outside his ship uneasily, shivering with the cold wind whipping around his frame. 

He’s on an unpopulated moon, far away from any civilized planets, his weapon stowed safely away in his ship. If there were an attack, he wouldn’t be able to reach it in time. 

In the sky, a small ship appears and lands not yards away from Obi-Wan, shrouded in darkness. Obi-Wan can’t see through the windows, can’t see who’s in the pilot’s seat, but as the familiar form emerges the Jedi holds back a sudden rush of emotion. 

Anakin looks no different from the last time they met. He is swaddled in a dark cloak and moves toward Obi-Wan with his lightsaber ignited. The new model is not unlike his old one, but its flame is bold and red. 

“Why did you call me here, Obi-Wan?” He asks harshly, looming easily over the older man. 

He must look weak, Obi-Wan figures silently as he stares at his old apprentice with shock, with awe, with something in between. Dark bags reside beneath his eyes from nights spent pacing about his modest Tatooine shack endlessly, and he has grown thin from the countless days in which he felt too sickened by his failure to eat. The long cut across his face has healed, but it has left a long, raised mark that stretches from the right side of his forehead to his left cheek. “I needed to see you.” 

“Desired a rematch, did you?” Anakin asks, voice hard and unforgiving. Obi-Wan puts up his hands to indicate that he has no weapon. 

“Nothing of the sort.” He promises, meeting Anakin’s Sith-gold eyes. He represses a shiver. They look so _empty,_ and yet so full at the same time. “On the contrary, I’ve come to surrender.” 

It’s clear, Anakin’s surprise. He’s always been expressive, and his new allegiance to the Sith seems to have only enhanced this. “What?” 

Obi-Wan gives nothing more than a soft, sad smile. “I have failed, Anakin, both as your teacher and as a Jedi. I allowed my emotions, my attachment to you, to have the better of me. I lost the battle because I knew I could not watch you die.” 

_Everything around them is burning. Obi-Wan’s face stings with a lash that was given just moments ago by Anakin’s saber, rapidly losing the upper hand he had had prior to Anakin’s sudden bout of aggression._

_He gains it back, because he has orders to do so. He spots a chink in Anakin’s armor because he has orders to do so. He prepares to make a fatal hit, because he has orders to do so._

_But then, he looks at Anakin’s face._

_His_ student’s _face._

_The face he has grown to love._

_And he can’t bring himself to do it._

_He stops suddenly and lets his hands fall to his sides, saber held loosely in his hands._

_“I will not fight you, Anakin.” He decides over the rush of blood in his ears, over the burning wind that whips around their ears._

_Before Anakin can do anything other than gape in shock, Obi-Wan is gone._

The wind whips around them, just like it had on Mustafar. Only now, it is cold and brittle.


	2. Chapter 2

It feels like static is coiled between them, ready to crack against both of them in thick bolts of lightning. 

“Even still, why would you want to surrender? This seems an awful lot like a trap, Obi-Wan.” 

Anakin looks outraged, but even more he looks surprised. Obi-Wan watches him unflinchingly. “I am unarmed, Lord Vader. Kill me, if you so wish.” 

At the new name Anakin seems to come back to himself, and extinguishes his saber before taking a few cautious steps forward. 

“Why, Obi-Wan?” 

His voice is still strong, defensive, but less so. 

The Jedi looks away, trying to compose himself. Even still, the numb exterior he’d built up is quickly crumbling, and tears he’s been pushing down for ages are filling his eyes. “I have failed as a Jedi, but my refusal to kill you on Mustafar was not my only breach in the Code. I - I fell in love, Anakin.” 

Anakin’s close now, Obi-Wan realizes. So close that their contrasting cloaks brush against one another, and Obi-Wan is forced to crane his neck to meet the Sith’s eyes. 

Wordlessly, Anakin lifts a hand to brush against Obi-Wan’s face, gloved fingers fluttering along the line of his scar before they finally come to rest against his jaw. 

“Don’t leave me again,” Obi-Wan begs, voice shaky, coming out in a whisper of pure terror.

Not of the man in front of him, but of the idea of his absence. 

“I won’t,” Anakin promises softly, leaning in until their breaths ghost against one another’s. “You have my word.” 

Finally, their lips meet.


	3. Chapter 3

It seems like decades before they pull apart, panting against each other’s wet lips. Obi-Wan almost doesn’t want to open his eyes, terrified that he’d imagined all of this. 

It _feels_ real. The tears that roll warmly down his cheeks, creating two sharp lines of contrast to the rest of his chilled face feel real. Anakin’s hands, one still set against his jaw and the other gripping his waist almost possessively, feel real. Their minds, tangling and twisting together until they are one, feel real. 

He takes a gamble, and opens his eyes. 

It’s real. Anakin is standing close, their chests almost pressed together, and after a moment he reaches up to wipe away Obi-Wan’s tears with a thumb. He can’t help but give a heavy sigh of relief. 

“Don’t be afraid, Obi-Wan,” the younger man whispers, his eyes meeting the Jedi’s steadily. 

They aren’t empty at all, Obi-Wan realizes. They hold every emotion. But now, most of all, there is love. 

“I have you now. It’ll be alright.” 

He tugs Obi-Wan to his chest and he nearly collapses there, head falling onto Anakin’s shoulder and tears wetting the Sith’s dark, dark robes. 

The tension in his shoulders drop, as does the air of adversity between them. They are one in the same now, two sides of the same twisted, irreparable coin. Anakin’s arms wrap securely around him, strong and sure and everything Obi-Wan had ever wanted from him. His hands trace invisible patterns across the plane of his back. His voice murmurs gentle comforts into his ear. 

His head aches with the weight of his secrets. Finally, he can’t hold them all without facing the risk of collapsing. 

“Anakin, I - I must tell you something.” He says, voice weak and faltering. 

The gentle fingers running up and down his back in a pattern only Anakin could discern does not cease. “What is it my beloved?” 

Obi-Wan shifts closer, pulling away after a moment to look up, into Anakin’s eyes. 

“Your children. they survived.” 

Anakin looks as though the wind has been knocked out of him, as though there isn’t enough wind in the air to revive him. 

It takes a while for him to regain his speech, and this time it is his eyes that fill with hot, burning tears. “My - my children?” 

“Yes. They were twins, a boy and a girl. They were separated, so that you wouldn’t find them.” 

Once Anakin finishes reeling from the sudden realization of his children, his face contorts in unrestricted anger. “The Council did this, didn’t they? Yoda - Yoda did this. He wanted to keep my own children from me.” 

The sheer force in his voice, the fury in his eyes and the way his fingers clench into fists at Obi-Wan’s back; the Dark side suits Anakin. It always has, Obi-Wan decides. He was just too terrified of the Darkness to allow himself to see it. 

His eyes, previously set on the horizon as if his enemies had decided to congregate there, shoot back down to Obi-Wan. 

“We will collect them,” he promises, pressing his lips hurriedly to Obi-Wan’s. His mind is whirring, working a mile a minute, and Obi-Wan distantly admires it. 

_We can be a family,_ Anakin doesn’t have to say. _We can be so_ happy _together._

Without thought, Obi-Wan nods. He wants Anakin to be happy. _He_ wants to be happy. 

And, after all they’ve been through, they deserve it.


	4. Chapter 4

Months pass, between that fateful night between them and the present. It feels like years, though; years of enlightenment, of change. 

Obi-Wan no longer minds the gray durasteel that seems to make up everything on this ship. He no longers wakes up with a scream crossed with a sob caught in his throat, plagued with nightmares. He no longer begs Anakin not to leave, because he knows he never will. 

Finally, he doesn’t worry for their lives. The Empire will keep its most prized asset safe, and in turn it will protect the ones that matter to him. 

By the most liberal of titles, Obi-Wan is a guard. 

He is by no means a Sith, and he doesn’t pick up his lightsaber anymore. Nevertheless he still holds the same skill that their Lord Vader wields openly, and he is always ready to use it should the need arise. 

And, of course, the children. 

They’re nearly a year old now, and since learning to walk they toddle all over the halls of the Star Destroyer, usually with Obi-Wan trailing fondly behind him. 

Luke has his father’s old eyes, and the sandy blond hair that Anakin must have had at that age. When they embrace and their faces are pressed together, they look nearly identical. He is very curious, and when Obi-Wan lifts him up he reaches out and runs his small fingers along the jagged line of the man’s scar almost lovingly, the same way Anakin does it in a silent apology late in the night when no one else can see. 

Leia, on the other hand, is the spitting image of her mother. Her hair is a dark, sleek brown, her eyes a peaceful chestnut color. She has a quick temper, like her father, and isn’t afraid of anything. Luke is more cautious, but only slightly. He hides behind Obi-Wan’s legs whenever they see the Emperor in passing; but only moments later he joins his sister in tugging on his long black cloak. 

Obi-Wan knows of the power in these children, and he knows that the Emperor knows it, too. He gazes down at them with manipulative, artificial kindness, and demonstrates the lightning that crawls from his palm all the way up to his elbow. He grins when Luke reaches out with fascination, then quickly recoils from the stinging shock. 

The ex-Jedi doesn’t intend to insert himself but he does, gathering Luke into his arms and giving a clearly flimsy excuse that the twins are most certainly wondering where their lunch is. 

The Emperor draws himself to his full height and looms over Obi-Wan but the younger man stands tall, unafraid. 

“Excuse us,” he says evenly, tone brooking no room for protest, and he takes Leia’s hand in his and moves around the Emperor and down the hall. 

Only when they return to his and Anakin’s room does Obi-Wan give a heavy sigh of relief, sinking into a chair. 

Anakin steps out of the bathroom, hair still wet from the ‘fresher, and turns to Obi-Wan. “What is it? I can feel your unrest.” 

The children dash to their father and babble at him unintelligibly, competing for his attention as they tug at his pant legs. 

Obi-Wan watches them, feels the bright light radiating off of them as Anakin sits himself on the floor and lets them climb over his form. 

It isn’t unlike the light Anakin once held so brightly. 

The Emperor will pound it out of them, if he is given the chance. He will twist their minds until the lights go out, and there will be nothing left but darkness. 

Even Anakin has a _little_ bit of light left in him. 

“Anakin?” 

He looks up from where he’d been watching his children, golden eyes searching his lover’s face. “What is it, my darling?” 

Obi-Wan’s eyes move from Anakin’s to the children. They’ve grown tired and are laying lazily beside their father, eyes heavy if not closed completely. 

“I want to teach them in the ways of the Force. Not as Jedi. But - they deserve to understand both sides, don’t they? To make the choice for themselves?” 

Anakin stands, careful not to jostle the now-sleeping toddlers, and strides over to Obi-Wan before kneeling in front of his chair and kissing him resolutely on the mouth, pulling away only to press their foreheads together. 

“I had hoped you would say that.” For a split second, in the shadows of darkness with their faces this close together, Obi-Wan could swear Anakin’s eyes have turned blue once more, a shade Obi-Wan hasn’t seen on him in what feels like centuries. “The Emperor will not be happy about this. He knows they are strong. He wants to teach them himself.” 

Obi-Wan winces internally, recalling Luke’s cry of pain and the Emperor’s sickening grin when he’d been too curious for his own good. “I will insist, then. He would not offer them a choice in the matter, if he taught them. I cannot allow it.” 

Anakin nods, leans forward to press his lips to Obi-Wan’s once more. 

“I love you,” he murmurs softly, and Obi-Wan is surrounded by it, cocooned in it. 

When he pulls away entirely, his eyes are as they always are. Even still, Obi-Wan is sure he hadn’t imagined it. 

He turns his gaze back to the children, their sleeping faces peaceful and tucked against their small hands. 

He will teach them in the Light. He will shield them from the Darkness that permeates everything on this ship. 

They will learn to resist it, he prays late at night when Anakin isn’t awake to hear him. They will not be lost in the twisting forest that Anakin is trapped in. 

There is a chance to save them, as well as Anakin. A chance to bring balance to the Force once and for all. Only a chance. 

But he has to try.


	5. Chapter 5

Obi-Wan doesn’t want to believe what he sees. 

And yet it’s there, staring back at him with two pairs of wide, glassy eyes. 

Anakin’s children. 

_His_ children. 

He sinks to his knees, runs his hands along Leia’s pale face and then Luke’s. Neither of them stir, or turn their face away, like they would if they were sleeping. 

They just lie there, staring at Obi-Wan with too young, dead eyes. 

His own vision blurs. Tears slip down his cheeks as if he is a river, and these children had been the dam. 

Somewhere beneath the grief he’s trying not to feel, there is a twist of anger. He knows full well who had done this, and it is only proven in the pattern of dark bruises that can be seen peeking out from beneath the collar of Luke’s shirt. 

He hears the door slide open, hears a gasp sound from the threshold. 

Anakin manages four shaky steps toward his children before his legs give out and he falls to his knees beside Obi-Wan, taking Leia’s small form into his arms and holding back shaky sobs. 

“No,” he manages, shaking his head as he rocks the girl. “No, Obi-Wan, we can fix this, we have to-” 

“They’re gone.” Obi-Wan breathes, shoulders hunched over Luke as he watches, prays they will stir and laugh as if this is some silly game.

They don’t. 

He sways slightly, before reaching out and closing Luke’s eyes with his thumb and forefinger. 

Anakin does the same with Leia’s, still gripping her body and shushing her between his sobs. 

They remain there for what must be hours in silence, the only sounds their broken, breathless sobs. 

Finally Anakin sets Leia carefully down beside her brother, caressing her face with his gloved hand one more time before pulling himself to his feet. He offers Obi-Wan a hand and he takes it, standing shakily. 

Obi-Wan is the first to turn away. He wipes the tears from his cheeks as he walks, steps purposeful. Anakin doesn’t follow him. 

He takes his lightsaber from where it is hidden deep within their closet and leaves the room. 

Finding the Emperor is easy. 

He doesn’t wait for the Sith to draw his weapon. He lunges forward and swings his saber, all strategy gone from his fighting style as he hits and hits and _hits_. 

The Emperor is long dead by the time he stops. Tears have begun to slip down his cheeks again, his hair hangs disheveled in his face, and a slight smattering of blood has made its way onto his robes. 

Obi-Wan leaves him like that, eyes wide and afraid, and returns to their room. 

When he looks in the mirror he expects to see his tired, aging face, haggard and dark from the slaughter he had just committed. 

But instead, all he sees is red. 

His eyes have changed. _He_ has changed, and his eyes swim gold with bright red flecks in indication of the blood he had spilled only moments ago. He represses a shiver. 

He cleans himself up and sits down in the middle of their bedroom, eyes staring blankly forward. His saber sits by his side, close enough to grab should there be an attack. 

No such attack arrives, only Anakin. 

“Obi-Wan,” he says once he catches sight of the man, voice still thick with emotion. “Obi-Wan?” 

The older man’s eyes crawl up Anakin’s body tiredly. He’s _so tired_ , he realizes, as if this place had been stealing his sleep in the night. Had he slept at all? He couldn’t remember. 

It’s not until he gets to Anakin’s eyes, though, that he realizes. 

Neither of them had _really_ slept since arriving here. 

“Obi-Wan, we have to leave,” he says hurriedly, finding Obi-Wan’s hand and helping him to his feet. His eyes linger on Obi-Wan’s, surprised at their sudden color change, but there is no time to linger. “Come on. We have to go now, the guards will be here soon.” 

Obi-Wan stands, dumbstruck, staring into the red, red eyes that now match his own. 

Anakin moves, because he has to. He dashes toward the escape pods with Obi-Wan’s hand in his because he has to. He pushes the man into a seat and flies away, because he has to. 

Once they’re in hyperspeed, Anakin stands and walks to Obi-Wan. Tears are slipping down his cheeks once more, and when Anakin comes close enough he leans his head onto him. 

“It’s alright,” Anakin murmurs gently, voice catching as he runs his fingers soothingly up and down his back. “I have you now, Obi-Wan. We will destroy the Empire, for this.” 

When the once-Jedi brings his head up to look at Anakin’s face, the younger gives only a ghost of a smile. 

They are not repaired. The death of their children has only broken them further. 

Being broken is a step in the right direction, Obi-Wan decides. 

But given the option, he thinks while choking back a sob and clinging to Anakin’s robes, he would offer his neck to the Empire if it meant restoring the vibrant lives of his, of their, children. 

The option does not present itself. 

The best they can have now is revenge. 

Red eyes meet red eyes, and he nods.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Likes + Kudos are always greatly appreciated! I also have a [Tumblr](http://little-floral.tumblr.com/), if you'd like to say hello!


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